


Something Strange

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: A Dalmatian made of chalk, Active Precipitation, Angst, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Fun, Gen, Magic, Prompt Fic, Random & Short, Stoats Everywhere, Strange things are happening, Weirdness, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 16,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9159124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: Spencer's the worst witch ever with a jinx he's not sure he really wants to shake, Rossi's a manipulative bastard, and Hotch has a cloud stuck on his head that rains when he's sad. Things are getting strange at the BAU this month, and Emily's almost glad to spend part of it as a stoat.





	1. January 1st: Emily’s Right Kind of Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pint-Sized](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8178025) by [Deejaymil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil). 



> **Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 1st: **Found**  -  **100 words**  - Your character finds something strange. Is it real, some sort of alien, has science finally gone too far?!_

For as long as she could remember, things had just gone _wrong_ around her. Not terribly wrong or horribly wrong or _meanly_ wrong, just… wrong. Off-centre. Not how things should be. But then again, Emily wasn’t exactly how she should be either, so it didn’t really bother her.

Especially today.

“Mom’s not going to let me keep you,” she said matter-of-factly to the dog she’d found. The dog put muddy paws on her best Sunday dress, streaking the muslin. “But we’ll hide you, okay? You’re _wicked_.”

The dog barked and licked her with two sloppy tongues, both golden-furred heads panting in unison. Really, he wasn’t as weird as the three-eyed cat her cat had given birth to when she was six… or the sparrows by the lake that talked in perfect, piping voices. He wasn’t as weird as Emily Prentiss was. But that was okay. She had a feeling she was probably going to see a lot weirder than him in her lifetime.


	2. January 2nd: Hotch’s Trouble with Witches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 2nd: **Cloudy**  -  **200 words**  - Character has a very literal personal raincloud today._

The problem with witches was that they never _quite_ thought things through. The problem with Reid, as Hotch was discovering, was that not only did he never think things through, but he was just so easily _misled_.

“I’m sure you’re aware why I’ve called you down here,” he told them firmly. He had his best glare on. The effect was likely somewhat spoiled by the fact he was currently being rained on.

“Because they won’t let you in the building?” Prentiss offered.

“Because you’re actively precipitating?” Reid squeaked.

“Why is there a cloud on your head?” Rossi asked, never one to beat around the bush. “Reid, what the fuck did you do?”

The cloud sighed sadly. Hotch winced. It wasn’t bad enough that he had a cloud following him, but it appeared that the cloud was… well, depressed. Somehow. Even the rain trickling down his neck felt morose.

“I’m sorry,” Reid said, looking supremely guilty. “I was trying to undo it—”

“It’s my fault, sir,” Emily cut in firmly. “We were joking about making a spell to, uh…” Reid flushed red. “—…alert us to your… disposition. Because you’re very hard to read, sometimes. But it went _wrong_.”

“I don’t know why,” Reid moaned. It was Emily’s turn to look guilty. “I swear I did it right, honest!”

“Just fix it,” Hotch growled, turning to the desk they’d translocated down into the corner of the parking lot for him to work on until he stopped ‘precipitating’. “ _Now.”_

They vanished with identical squeaks of fear. The cloud sighed again and coughed up a quietly despairing little blink of thunder. Hotch winced, reaching up to pat the thing. It seemed to like that. It _was_ kind of cute. Somehow.

Maybe they could keep it. Just… not on his head.


	3. January 3rd: Rossi’s Found a Jinx

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 3rd: **Face**  -  **100 words**  - Describe a character having the feeling portrayed in this picture._
> 
> ** **

The trouble with his new teammate, as Rossi was finding, was that Spencer Reid wasn’t a very good witch. Genius, maybe. Certainly fantastic at his job. Even a somewhat decent shot with his gun, although Hotch assured him that that hadn’t always been the case. But he was absolutely crapsack shite at magic and Rossi couldn’t work out _why_. He suspected that the man had some kind of jinx on him, but he just couldn’t find the damn thing to find out exactly what the jinx was.

“Just fill this cup, come on,” Rossi coaxed, tipping the empty glass towards the other man. “It’s a simple targeted precipitation spell. You can’t mess it up.”

Reid frowned, twitching his hands together. Behind him, Prentiss grinned, Morgan tipped a manila folder over his head, and Hotch circumspectly closed his office door. “I don’t—” he began, and Rossi sighed. Another frown. Giving in, Reid picked up a piece of spellwork paper and began the simple twist to call the water to where he sent it. “I know the _theory_ ,” he said miserably, and Rossi watched carefully.

He did know the theory. Everything was correct. He was doing _fine_.

Doing fine until he wasn’t, and there was a chorus of shrieks as the floor felt like it _dropped_ out from under them, sending them all sliding down to thump against the carpet. It was rather like being dropped into a kitchen sink, except the floor was apparently unchanged and Reid himself was untouched.

A full kitchen sink.

Spluttering and coughing, the assembled sixth floor of the FBI offices stared furiously at the witch, every single one of them soaking wet and shocked despite there actually being no water in the room, just the idea of being drenched.

“Oops,” Reid said sadly, and Prentiss began to laugh. 


	4. January 4th: Reid’s Existential Crisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 4th: **The Fourth**  -  **300 words**  - Break the 4th wall._

They were supposed to be wearing their vests but Reid—for some godforsaken reason— _hadn’t_ been. The spell had hit him smack bang in the middle of his chest, his face slipping into a confused kind of _ow_ shape before he’d crumpled to the floor. The next few hours had been a panicked flurry of trying to work out just what that spell had done, while Reid placidly slept in a hospital bed as though he belonged there. Which, with the amount of times Emily had been left doing ‘bedside Reid duty’ was probably true enough. The day slipped into a weary routine of glancing up at him to see if he was awake, glancing back down to her book, glancing back up again—his eyes were open.

“Morning idiot,” she snapped, relief making her cranky. “The _fuck_ did you take your vest off for?”

Reid blinked, touching his chest, before looking around nervously. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It seems… really counterintuitive of me. Not at all what a trained special agent of my intelligence would do, unless the ratings needed a boost…” He trailed off, looking confused. “Have I been hurt yet this season? Does this count? Wait, why would that help ratings? Why would people _like_ hurting me, Emily, why? I’m not a bad person, am I?”

Emily reached slowly for the nurse call button. “Okay,” she soothed. “Perhaps… lie back down. We’ll get you looked…”

Reid grabbed her hand, eyes huge. “I can’t exist,” he whispered intently, staring at the blank opposing wall of the room like he could see right through it. “My character is completely illogical. And Hotch! How does _Hotch_ exist? Do you know by our timeline he has his juris doctorate by nineteen? And what college did I even go to!? _I’m an impossible entity._ ”

Emily was pretty sure she was going to _glue_ his fucking vest to his chest after this.


	5. January 5th: Henry’s New Buddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 5th: **Tickle**  -  **100 words**  - The Tickle Monster is real and out to get your character!_

“I think,” Reid said seriously, crouched down to peer intently at the boy scribbling away on the floor, “that Henry might have magic.”

JJ snorted. Reid was smart when it came to the magical theoretical, but she’d _seen_ his attempts at casting. “He doesn’t,” she reassured him, waving him out of the door. Reid glanced back, brow furrowed. “Honestly, Spence. We had him tested. Now, shoo. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye, Unky Spence,” Henry chirped, as the door closed firmly. He went back to scribbling what looked like a scrawling spiral of lines and dashes, brightly orange and purple. JJ smiled, and went on with her day without giving it another thought.

She woke up that night to a haunting feeling that there was something almost not-touching her face. Silence fell heavily onto the house, Will breathing next to her and her heart hammering.

“Mommy,” came a whisper from the darkness. “Mommy, _look_.”

JJ looked. And froze as the many-armed feathered tentacle _thing_ held proudly in her son’s arms looked back. “Wha…?” Will breathed, staring at it. It blinked.

“It’s a tickle,” Henry announced. “I drewed it. Want to hug?”

“No!” they both cried, but it was far, far too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, the tickle monster is benign! It just loves to hug.


	6. January 6th: Hotch’s Hellish Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 6th: **Drink**  -  **100 words**  - A character drinks something that makes them...?_

The thing about curses, was that they were fucking _tenacious._

“Hmm,” said Hotch, and peered at the desk and its angrily chittering occupant. Reid leaned heavily against the desk, his fingers white and trembling, very clearly absolutely plastered.

“We were out at a bar—” he was rambling, tripping over his own words in a panic.

Garcia wasn’t much better. “—and I think maybe we pissed some—sorry, sir—made someone angry because when I got the drinks I ordered five and there were five but then there were more and—”

At least Rossi was somewhat calm. “—I didn’t see it otherwise I would have _stopped_ her but her and genius over here vanished for a _second_ —”

“—we were just _talking_ —” Reid wailed, listing dangerously to the side and almost taking the animal with him, as though Hotch wasn’t a profiler and couldn’t see that two of his shirt buttons were crooked and there was a suspicious shadow on his throat, “—and then she drank it and I thought maybe I’d done something again but I didn’t _cast_ and I don’t know how to undo it and when I tried to discern what it was all the glass would say was ‘meant for the stoat-hearted’—”

“Awful fucking puns, every curse is a fucking pun,” Rossi grumbled, cutting him off.

Hotch ignored them all, instead looking down at the now miserably huddled stoat pressed shivering against his pen holder. Red fur fluffed up and tufty tail tucked between tiny hind paws, she looked utterly horrified by her predicament.

“Sorry, Em,” Reid managed finally, giving into gravity. He slumped against the desk, hand sprawled on the surface. Emily chittered and tapped her nose apologetically against his palm. “We’ll fix you. I promise.”

“Perhaps sober up first,” Hotch said tiredly, and reached for his phone. If this was anything like fixing the cloud, it was going to be _hellish._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I feel like this might put a damper on any new thing Reid and Emily were 'discussing' 
> 
> Oops.


	7. January 7th: Reid's Terrible Fright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 7th: **Puppeteer**  -  **Super Saturday word count**  - pay an escalation cost for each additional add-on._
> 
> _(ex. Manipulative + injury OR twist OR style = 600 words; Manipulative + 2 picks = 800 words; Manipulative + all picks = 1,000 words.)_
> 
>   * **_400 words_** _Today your heroes are up against a Manipulative Bastard_
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- One of your main characters suffers a serious injury._
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- A dramatic plot twist that is so obvious that the [heroes] assume it's fake._
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- Write it in noir style._
> 


Reid steepled his fingers, watching the screen carefully as the words slowly tapped their way into existence.

_Ur running on the premise this was aimed at me_ said the line of Garamond font on the mostly blank Word document. _Tap tap skittery tap_ went Emily’s claws on the keyboard as she painstakingly bounced back and forth, typing. He helpfully backspaced for her when she slipped and left an angry line of _nnnnnnnnnnn_ across the bottom row. _Mayb it was 4 u. Maybe u need to figure sumtin out_

The stoat blinked up at him, beady black eyes wide. He hummed thoughtfully, working over it in his mind. Who would _want_ to turn one of them into a _stoat_ of all things? It was _annoying,_ but not really dangerous, and all curses tended to have a shelf life… it would likely wear off on its own within in a month, if none of them figured out how to trigger a reversal.

_I STILL THINK ITS UNFAIR I ENDED UP A FERRET ND UR FINE_

“Your caps lock is down,” he pointed out, earning a huff. “And you’re a stoat, not really a ferret. They’re both mustelids, but—”

Emily hissed, tail whisking on the desk.

He swallowed. “I mean,” he began quietly, rubbing the tip of his finger across the white blaze on her narrow chest, “my almost-girlfriend is a stoat. That’s not quite the same as _being_ a stoat, but it does hurt me… I miss you.”

She pressed her nose against his palm, eyes closing. The message was clear enough. _I miss you, too._

“I fixed the cloud,” Reid mumbled, kneading his fingers into his temple and thinking intently about _every_ curse he knew. Which was a lot more than people expected a witch to know. “I can fix this. I promise, Em. I’ll fix this.”

_Tap tappity tap_ went the keyboard.

_Fantastic. And wen r we going 2 tel Hotch all u did 2 the cloud was make it invisible?_

 

* * *

 

There was something a little _odd_ about working a case with a stoat on their team, but Emily seemed to be getting her point across well enough just by squeaking and pointing. Once Reid found her a pencil small enough for her paws to hold, and JJ found her a thimble steady enough to hold a stoat-sized serving of coffee, it all went rather well.

If only Rossi would stop making _jokes_.

“Let’s just paws for a moment,” was his latest one, and the pencil made an ominous _crack_ sound in Emily’s grip. “I think we should—”

“One more,” Morgan growled, twitching. “One more _pun_ , Rossi, and I swear _I will learn how to curse and turn you into an alpaca.”_

“Alpacas bite,” JJ said absently. “Reid, did we get those copies of the geographical profile printed off? I can’t find them.”

Reid snapped his attention away from the argument brewing between the two other profilers. “Uh,” he said, as Rossi smiled in a I-have-another-pun-coming kind of way. “I’ll go check.” Because she was looking murderous, he made the decision to take Emily with him, perched on his shoulder like a whiskery parrot. “You know,” Reid mused on the way through the precinct’s squad-room, his mind buzzing. “Rossi is awfully pleased about this whole thing…” Emily looked at him, nose quivering. “Everyone else is stressed, and he’s making jokes…”

Emily chittered, claws dragging across his sweater-vest. Opening his mouth to calm her down, regretting his rash thoughts, Reid almost missed the—

“Gun!” someone yelled, and he turned to find a weapon in his face. The man wielding it had the wide-eyed kind of look of someone on the verge of anything and a broken handcuff dangling from one wrist. He was also a magic user, something that became apparent ten seconds later when a shield popped up between them and the sudden roomful of weapons aimed at the suspect.

“Oh,” Reid said, and made the choice to go for his weapon instead of relying on his dismal casting.

The wrong choice.

The gun cracked across his jaw with a white-hot burst of pain and he dropped, blinking away stars as a foot came down on his wrist. _Fuck,_ he had time to think, as the suspect lunged for his collar. _Hostage again, **fuck**_.

A red blur flashed past, latching onto the man’s hand before he could get a grip. A scream and the man jerked back, stumbling and desperately trying to get the infuriated stoat off his arm and shoulder and face as she bit at anything she could reach. There was no time to think. Reid had to get the shield down. His gun was out of reach, kicked away, his magic wasn’t offensive and—

If he screwed this up, he could crush them by bringing the shield in on their heads. Or worse.

He froze, just in time for the man to get a grip on the stoat and toss her to the floor. She squeaked, leaping up into a wild war kind of dance, wheeling on tiny paws. Rossi was roaring something, there was a booming clap of furious thunder nearby, spells were racing through Reid’s head, he leapt up to tackle the guy while he was distracted—he couldn’t kill them if he didn’t _cast_ —and the man kicked.

Emily hit a desk with a peeping sound of shock, and then didn’t move. Her slender sides lay still. A white paw twitched once.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Emily?” he asked, and the room went silent. Or maybe Reid stopped listening.

Something happened. He wasn’t sure what. But the man was gone, the shield was too, and everything smelt very strongly of sulphur. People were talking. He didn’t care.

He shuffled over on numb feet to kneel down and scoop her up. She was fine. Curses broke if the recipient was killed, and she was _still_ a stoat. So she was _fine_.

A hand on his shoulder. Reid growled once and the thunder growled with him. The sulphur smell grew. People weren’t talking now, but keeping their fucking distance, _good._

“Spence,” Rossi murmured, crouching next to him. “It’s my curse. Come on. Look at me. Stop casting; you’re hurting people.”

Reid swallowed something _acidic_ and looked at Rossi. Rossi recoiled, and there was pain in his eyes. The cloud was visible again, growing and growing above Hotch’s head and pouring rain in that half of the room. Whatever burning _rage_ Reid was tamping down was searing the air around them, the people not under the cloud gasping and patting at smouldering clothes. Rossi’s hair was smoking.

“Take it off,” Reid managed through the anger. “Take it off _now_.”

The heat grew. Rossi sucked in a breath that rattled. Water splattered against their backs. The cloud would stop the burning. Fine. Reid didn’t want _everyone_ to hurt. Just himself. He should have _known_. “I can,” Rossi said carefully, “or rather, you can. It’s a kiss, Reid, I keyed it to a kiss.”

Someone nearby said, “What the _fuck_ , Rossi,” and someone else laughed with a hysterical kind of sob in their voice. The rain fell. Emily’s fur turned dark with the wet. She wasn’t breathing. Reid wiped water away from her tiny, slack mouth.

“Why?” he rasped, and Rossi didn’t answer. Reid knew anyway. No one could leave well enough _alone_.

“If she’s hurt, I’ll never forgive you,” he promised Rossi quietly, and brought his cupped palms to his mouth to press his lips against the silky-smooth furred slope of her head, between delicate rounded ears. “Don’t quit on me,” he breathed, and she gasped. The curse sagged and snapped, and she was a person curled in his lap and glaring at Rossi with all the force she could muster through eyes that were teary with pain.

“You bastard,” she managed, before Reid kissed her again _properly_ this time, because _god_ he’d been scared. He hugged her tight, pressing his face against her shoulder, trying to pretend his face was wet from the downpour. “I knew, Spence. I knew it was his. I wanted to, _ow_ , see if you’d figure it… if you broke the curse, your magic can’t be _that_ jinxed… I think my rib is broken, _ow,_ you’re hugging so _tight_ , jeez.”

Reid snorted wetly. A week as a stoat seemed a bit much for an _experiment,_ but he hadn’t quite recovered enough to be mad at her just yet. And he knew the real reason she’d done it. He’d yell later. For now, he choked out a shaky, “You could have just _asked_ me if I love you,” and ignored her startled _oh_.

The rain stopped.


	8. January 8th: Hotch’s Vengeful Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 8th: **I Knew It!**  -  **100 words**  - Someone finds out that a character has been living a double life all along!_

It was a warm, cheerful day, and the cloud over Hotch’s head couldn’t be gloomier. He glared at the cashier at the supermarket as she stared at it, and he glared at the cop who pulled him over and threatened to ticket him for ‘unlicensed weathering’, and he glared at the woman who’d walked past him on the sidewalk as he’d pulled up outside his friend’s house and accidentally splattered her with misty rain. She wiped her jacket, sneered, and flounced away.

The cloud rumbled sadly.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, and gave it a pat as he walked up the drive. “Now, rain _extra_ hard when we get inside, okay? There’s a rug in his living room that he loves. Remember how much he loves it.” The cloud purred, always eager to please. It was a little disconcerting, really, how _Reid-like_ it could be. Just moister.

The door opened before he had a chance to knock and Dave stood there, looking guilty. Hotch stared sadly at him. The cloud ambled by, squeezing between them. “Ignore that,” Hotch said, folding his arms and glaring again. “It likes to explore.”

“I can explain,” Dave said, holding his hands out plaintively. “I just… didn’t want you guys to think I was lording it over you, being a sorcerer…”

“You _cursed_ Emily,” Hotch snapped.

“She didn’t mind!” Dave responded. “I vanished that tickle thing that Henry made! I’m not just a force of evil!”

“You could have told me!” Hotch said. From the living room, they heard a thunder roll. “I’m supposed to be your friend!”

Dave blinked. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t think… how about, ‘Aaron, I’m a sorcerer and also really, really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner’.”

Hotch nodded sternly. “That’s fine,” he said, softening. “Just don’t do it again.”

Dave went to laugh, right as there was a loud splattering sound of rainfall from his living room. His face fell. “My rug,” he whispered. “My _lovely_ rug. Aaron, how _could_ you?”

The cloud giggled happily.


	9. January 9th: Rossi’s Bad Good No Good Very Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 9th: **Pleonasm**  -  **100 words**  - Your character is bugging someone by describing something using pleonasms._

Rossi woke up with the distinct feeling that he was cursed. It wasn’t a mean curse. He knew curses. The mean ones made him feel cranky and inclined to snap at people. The weak ones made his nose itch. The irksome ones made his bones ache.

Today, his bones ached. “Hmm,” he said. The curse was knitted over his head like a bobbly hat and completely invisible to anyone that wasn’t him. It was far too clever, slightly witchy, and completely pedantic.

It was Reid with a capital Geek.

Just to see what the mad genius planned, Rossi left it alone. Revenge for the stoat, he imagined, and probably entirely Prentiss’s damn idea. But everything seemed fine. Nothing went oddly. He wasn’t an animal, no clouds haunted him…

He turned on the radio on his way to work.

“The unknown thieves of unidentified origins on the eve of last night illegally broke into the secured premises of a gas station and gained unapproved access to the ATM machine, taking a considerably large amount of cash money—”

Rossi winced. Oh, how journalism had fallen.

“What a wonderfully, fantastical, entirely delightful morning today is,” Hotch intoned calmly when Rossi walked past at him work. “I hope you’re all ready for a prolific day of industrious productivity.” He walked away, the cloud following, a bright spring-white and laden down with files it was _somehow_ carrying.

Rossi stared at him. Then he looked at the smirking Reid. “Is everyone going to talk like this today?” he asked, his heart sinking.

“Indubitably,” said Reid. “Absolutely. Almost certainly. And additionally, don’t try to take it off of yourself personally, either. That would be a bad… i- _dea_.” He stressed the dea into a warning _deer_ , smiling brightly. Rossi changed his mind about him. The kid wasn’t just a _terrible_ witch.

He was a fucking _evil_ one as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pleonasm is the additional and extra use of added, spare, unnecessary, redundant (superfluous or surplus), unneeded, and uncalled-for words in addition to, and on top of, what is necessary or essential. Or required. Or obligatory or vital or requisite or crucial. Or needed?


	10. January 10th: Emily’s Skewed Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 10th: **Cards**  -  **300 words**  - Someone loses a character in a card game._

She hadn’t completely forgiven him for the stoat, so when he snapped at her she got up and walked out rather than say something she’d regret. She was almost shivering with anger. The case was a messy one. Bodies showing up all over the States, all with one thing in common: a scythe shaped tattoo above their hearts. Reid had known it instantly. _Reaper marked_ , he’d murmured. _They played a game with Death and lost._

Emily had laughed. The idea _was_ laughable, but Reid’s expression hadn’t shifted. The idea of gambling her life in a game against an anthropomorphic personification of death itself… it was _stupid_.

“Why would they do that?” she’d asked. “It’s a guaranteed loss and when you lose, you give up your own afterlife. It’s idiotic!”

“Ever considered that some people are capable of loving that desperately?” Rossi had snapped back, his face oddly cold. “Some of us don’t pride ourselves _solely_ on our ability to hide our hearts, you know. You saying you wouldn’t do anything to keep him alive?” He’d pointed at Reid, who’d winced and looked away to hide his expression. Hotch had growled. Emily had left to hide her burning face. They didn’t think she _would_ gamble to save Reid’s life. Despite… despite their _thing_. Not even Reid thought she would.

_Well, would I?_ she wondered, finding a bench outside and sitting moodily on it. _Am I that cold?_

But she wasn’t much of a gambler.

Rossi eventually sat beside her. The silence grew heavy. Finally, he began to unbutton his shirt, slowly and without meeting her eyes. She knew already before he tugged the blue material aside to bare the scythe.

“Reid is wrong,” he said finally. “I didn’t lose a game…”

She waited. He shifted, tugging the shirt more to the side. A thick white scar, below the heart. Wide enough that she knew there was no way he’d have survived the bullet that had made it, unless he’d been shot on an operating table with a team of surgeons standing by.

“Someone lost one on your behalf.” It was a heady realization. “What does that mean for… the one who played?”

“Ten years to pay up,” Rossi said bluntly, redoing his shirt. “And I get another chance at fucking up my life again and making his sacrifice useless. But don’t _ever_ trivialize his choice, Emily. My comment was cruel and unfounded… but Jason Gideon has never once been idiotic. He knew the odds and played them anyway… and I’m forever thankful.”

Oddly, Emily found she was as well.


	11. January 11th: Garcia’s Bickering Babies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 11th: **"Accidental"**  -  **100 words**  - Gif prompt_

Her babies were fighting again.

Well. Her babies, and her one very cranky Daddy Rossi. Calling _him_ her baby felt a little… obscene. Actually, calling him Daddy also felt obscene…

“Do you think Rossi would like being called Daddy?” she mused over the crackly skype call, and Emily sprayed coffee out of her nose and made a harsh noise of discontent. Reid handed her a tissue, his eyes huge and locked on the laptop screen.

“Uh?” he said, and blinked himself into silence. Garcia decided, probably wisely, to change the subject. The room they were in was claustrophobic in a way her office of wonderful wonderfulness never was, surrounded by crates and crates of the precinct’s cold cases. The naughty corner for the two guilty agents.

“So, when is Hotch going to let you guys see the outside world again?” she asked, and was immediately rewarded by Emily beginning a tired grumble as she wiped coffee from her nose and mouth.

“I don’t understand why we’re even here—” she was snapping.

“Because you bet me to jinx Rossi’s goatee blue—” Reid added mildly, without making eye contact with her. Uh oh. Trouble in their stoat-slash-witchy little love-nest.

Emily winced: “Accidentally!”

Reid snorted. “You… _accidentally_ … bet me to dye Rossi’s goatee blue. And the spell messed up—which _was_ accidental…”

Garcia covered her mouth, holding back a choked laugh. “And… um… the… ferrets?”

Now, they were both frowning. “I have no idea,” Emily confessed, opening a file and scanning it absently. “We _really_ didn’t do that.”

“Maybe if they weren’t blue Hotch would believe us about that…” muttered Reid, ducking his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Rossi summoned them himself to…” He stopped, and stared at Emily. “Oh. That’s actually rather clever of him.”

“Oh, that _bastard_ ,” she snarled, “Oh, when he and Hotch get back, _it’s on_ ,” and the feed cut off. Garcia stared at the black screen.

Oh boy. Wherever Rossi was right now, he was in for a _world_ of hurt.


	12. January 12th: Your Something Dreadful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 12th: **Second**  -  **200**  - Write from 2nd person perspective._

_Your eyes open._

_It’s dark. The air smells of damp and rot and something harshly sour that burns in the back of your throat and drags a cough from your chest. And something is different. Something is wrong._

_Something has changed._

_A soft pressure nudges against your hand and you realize you’re on the ground, on your back, and the floor is cold. Cold, and when you press your palm against it, slimy to the touch. Another breath, and this one is hot. Choking. It feels like being a child again and hiding from the dark under your bedcovers. It feels like there’s something there watching, someone else breathing the same air as you, something monstrous lurking in the corner of your room by your closet and the door. Between you and your parents. Between you and **safety.**_

_It feels like suffocating._

_The soft pressure emanates against you again. Anxious. Needy. It shoves against your hip and whispers without words, but somehow you understand. It’s saying **are you okay?** It’s a little moist when you touch it, humid, but blessedly cold. And you struggle to remember: what happened?_

_Someone else heaves in a struggling breath, and without thinking you surge up onto unsteady feet. The feeling is intense and vivid: you **have** to help them. Before anything else, their safety is paramount. You know this absolutely._

_You don’t even know who you are, but you do know this._

_The thick air pushes back and you stagger and you fall, landing this time on another person. The breathing person, still breathing, and you hunch against their body and thank whoever is listening. The cold pressure returns and ghosts over the space where the body’s face would lay. It whispers again **fighting makes it stronger**._

_But you don’t know how not to fight. The thick air is layered with forgetting, and you know something has gone wrong._

_You’re losing. You know this._

_But there’s nothing you can do but keep on trying._


	13. January 13th: Emily’s Still a Bit Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 13th: **Whump**  -  **100 words**  - Friday the 13th is known throughout the infinite multiverses as a day of bad luck. Unfortunately, your character has run out of good luck and has nothing but whump today. (Whump = the physical/psychological hurting/torture of a beloved character. On the hurt/comfort spectrum, it's almost completely the bad stuff.)_

The little bit of wrong that Emily had always had haunting her still hadn’t quit. It hadn’t quite stayed the same as she’d grown, but she guessed that sort of made sense. She hadn’t stayed the same either. Wrong to a child was a dog with two heads or a cat with three eyes… wrong to a fifteen-year-old was her hair never being quite right, or the anti-pregnancy charm failing at the worst possible time. It was something _core_ , some twisted thing right inside her that made everything awful. She couldn’t change it. Just being her was being wrong.

Wrong as an adult was everything piling up at once. Small things getting stacked up until they became big things: like the first time her and Spencer _finally_ managed more than a shy kiss and she’d somehow fucked it up and made him feel so awkward about the whole thing he didn’t try to initiate again for two straight weeks after. It was losing her keys and her purse in the one day, and these things always came in three. That seemed to be how the worst jinxes worked. They worked in threes and it made them stronger. With Reid it was the terrible sex, followed by a fight about how she cooked her eggs, followed by an _actual_ fight that led to her storming out. They still hadn’t quite recovered from that, despite the blue-goatee bet.

With the missing things it was her keys and purse, and then it was what she couldn’t bear to lose. That was the pattern. Two small followed by a big and all piling together into something dreadful.

Storming down the hall, she was livid with more than just the idea that Rossi had conjured fucking _ferrets_ to upset them. She was angry that Reid still winced when he took his clothes off in front of her, furious that she’d have to get her locks changed, _infuriated_ that this was her lot in life. She probably would have taken all those feelings and more out on Rossi just because he was a target that, unlike Reid, would bite back, if she hadn’t walked into the conference room and found JJ frowning at her phone.

“Hotch and Rossi have been gone a while,” JJ said, and Emily felt the cold-shock feeling of her jinx twisting about deep inside her. A sure sign her bad luck had just turned worse. “And they’re not answering their phones.”


	14. January 14th: Rossi’s Dream of Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 14th: **Dream**  -  **Super Saturday wordcount**  - - pay an escalation cost for each add-on._
> 
>   * **_400 words_** _\- Your character sees someone that they NEED to see in a dream/vision/hallucination._
>   * **_+200 words_** _- This is your setting. Describe it in detail._
>   * **_+200_** _\- Other person reveals a massive secret that character would have no way of knowing... unless this is... REAL?!?!_
>   * **_+200_** _\- The mood is: tearjerking, bittersweet, and hopeful (optional song inspiration: Los Angeles - Peter Bradley Adams)_
> 


A single tree stood alone on the verge. The night sky splayed behind it, misty purple with a promised dawn. Rossi stepped back, wary, wispy white flecks of falling stars scattered around him and painting the dark grass with spots of burning orange that flashed and burned out in seconds.

“Nope,” he said, recognising the hill. “Nope nope _nope_. I want out. Out _now_ please.”

The last thing he needed was to be trapped in a dream, and a dream this absolutely was. From the stupid whimsical tree to the ozoney taste of fancying, he knew it. Shit, he’d spent long enough here, in the past. So he turned away from that familiar tree, furious with himself for walking into some kind of trap—and a little worried about Hotch who he knew had been at his side—and almost tripped over the man standing behind him.

“Fuck off,” Rossi told the man—more of a boy, really—immediately, folding his arms. “I don’t talk to dreams.”

“You just did,” the boy said quietly. “Except I’m not a dream. And you need to believe me… David.” He stumbled over Rossi’s name, wincing at the sound of it. Rossi examined him; the sharp eyes, the jawline, the shape of his nose.

Something cold and horrible twisted into his gut.

“No,” he said again, and turned to look at the tree. “No, fuck _off_. Not now. Not with Hotch—” With Hotch alone, somewhere, and no one knew where they were. Not the team, not Strauss, no one. If he was dying, Hotch was _alone_. “Get me out of here!”

But he didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not once he’d recognised that face, or rather, once he’d recognised who that face _could_ be. The last time he’d seen that tree, he’d just been shot in the chest. But there was no Gideon here this time to drag him back. And that time—

“You were here then, too,” he said, looking back at the boy. “Just… watching.”

“Waiting,” the boy corrected him. “But this isn’t right. You don’t feel like you’re supposed to be here yet. I think I can lead you out… I saw the way you went last time. If you trust me.” He pointed to a hill behind the tree, where storm clouds roiled. Rossi squinted at those clouds. They looked… familiar. Almost apologetically thunderous.

“Reid’s cloud,” he breathed, and began to run despite everything inside him screaming _stay with the boy_. Grass whipped at his legs and the air tried to push him back, the dream folding in on itself to pin him down in this place of dying. But David Rossi had never laid down on the job when his team needed him. “I can just follow that!”

“You can!” the boy called after, running with him. “But it will fight you—look out!”

The world shifted, trying to show him something cruel. Something to slow him down until his heart stopped beating, until the curse that they’d stumbled into finally won out. And maybe it would have worked if the boy hadn’t put his hands on Rossi’s spine and shoved him past the memory of a silent hospital room, a tiny blanket-covered body motionless under a younger him’s palms.

“Keep going,” the boy urged. The memory shifted back and Rossi couldn’t help but pause again, staring in horror. Despite the grass under his feet, he could smell the acid-bleach tang of the hospital. He could hear Caroline crying.

He could see the baby struggling to live. Small fists flailing weakly. He couldn’t look away. “Jesus,” he gasped, and stepped back. The boy grunted and tried to shove him into that memory. Through it. He’d have to pass right by the baby’s bed to escape this dream, and he knew if he did, he’d see his son die again. “I can’t…”

“You can,” the boy coaxed, voice almost drowned by a rattle of rain beyond the vicious memory. “Please… I didn’t suffer, you know. I don’t remember dying. I remember _you_ , and Mom, but not… not dying. Just your hands. And your voice... and how much I loved you, even then.”

Rossi looked at him then. Stared. Memorized.

Swallowed hard and let James take his hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling the tears and the hurt like it was new. Behind him, in the memory, he heard the cry that meant his son was gone.

“Don’t be,” James said roughly, and dragged him past the once-again silent room. “Just don’t die, old man. This dream isn’t big enough for two Rossis. There—that’s the curse. It should have killed you both already, I don’t know why it didn’t. Your body is in there.” He pointed to the storm, yawning ahead. It spiralled around, dark enough that Rossi couldn’t see the centre. He’d have to throw himself blindly into it and just hope.

“Damnit,” he said, after examining the storm for a moment longer and realizing just why he’d been given the option to have a second chance. “Reid is going to be _unbearable_ when I tell him his weird-ass cloud is saving our lives.” James laughed once, and then it was time. He had to let go of his son’s hand once more and step into the storm, back to living.

James let go first. “Cya,” he said with forced casualness, and stepped away. “In a long time, I hope.” Rossi, his throat tight and impossibly dry, nodded. “Oh, and Dad? One question?”

With one foot in the storm and his hand still warm with his son’s touch, Rossi paused. Around him, the storm was ripping the dream away, shoving him back into his body with frantic hands that felt like the weirdest mix of Reid and Hotch. But he still heard the final question, and he woke up laughing in a dark room with a bloodied and frantic Hotch crouched over his body.

_Why is your goatee blue?_


	15. January 15 th: JJ’s Worst Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 15th: **Holey Cow**  -  **100 words**  - The villain uses a portable hole to escape the heroes._

Fog settled around them, thickly twined around the bases of trees and hindering their every move. JJ’s boots pounded the soft dirt, a feeling very much like _almost_ falling over, despite her steady pace. In front, she could see Reid’s back as he sprinted as well, Emily to the right and the hounds baying in front.

They were tracking their nightmare. They’d gone to where Hotch and Rossi had travelled to interview a witness. Nothing there. Nothing but a dead end, and the faintest trace of spellcasting. Behind the school, the national park stretched out in endless acres of forest and gullies and lakes. When Reid had finally managed a fumbled, panicked spell-trace that had picked up blood on the wide trunk of an oak tree, they’d called in the K9 unit. And now they were hunting their team mates, or their kidnapper. Any trace. _Anything._

“Someone ahead!” one of the rangers called, a hound letting loose a roaring, snarling bark. JJ turned towards it, just in time to see Reid hurtling towards the fleeing shadow in the white mist.

“FBI—” she heard him shout, and there was a flash of magic casted and a guttural yelp. Emily shrieked something that could be anger, or terror, or just shock. Probably Reid’s name. JJ _hoped_ it wasn’t Reid’s name.

And the shadow flickered past her. Reid, or the man who could have taken two of her team?

She chased the shadow, gun out and breath harsh. Ahead, a rocky outcropping suddenly loomed up from the fog. She slammed against it, almost turning her ankle, barely managing to spin in time to see which direction her runaway was going. “Stop!” she yelled, and behind her someone called her name now.

The shadow stopped. He looked at her. He _was_ a he, his features bloodied but obscured by the shadows of the cliff.

And he laughed, leaning against the wall as she cautiously approached. Something rolled in his hands; he traced them lovingly across the rock.

“Hello, JJ,” said the man with a wink. “You’ll never find them. Some profilers you turned out to be.”

“Hands where I can see them,” she snarled, right as he leaned into the wall and vanished from sight. When she walked to where he’d been standing, there was nothing there but blank rock.

He was gone.


	16. A Stoaty Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amazing fanart made by the superb [FestiveFerret](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret) and rehosted with permission :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I logged onto the /r/fanfiction discord channel today and was surprised and delighted to be told that the amazing FestiveFerret on there had made this! IT'S STOAT EMILY. WITH HER MUG AND A TINY LITTLE ID BADGE AND IM DYING FROM HOW CUTE IT IS. And I wanted to immediately share it, so have this non-chapter with my flailing apologies. ENJOY THE ADORABLE EMILY STOAT IN ALL HER GLORY.

Stoat Em is absolutely my favourite thing about this story, no lie.

 

 


	17. January 16th: Reid’s Presently Passing Past the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 16th: **Timey Wimey**  -  **300 words**  - Time is a complicated thing. Push the envelope today by using present day AND a flashback AND a significant forward time skip in today's story._

They’d split up again, desperately searching the honeycomb labyrinth of caves within the cliff that their unsub had melted away into. Every team held a compass charmed to show their location on a map back at home base, no matter how deep they went. If tapped twice, it would show their way out. No one else was being lost in the maze today.

Reid walked five steps behind Emily, feeling her seething fury rolling back at him. He’d thrown himself into danger—he didn’t regret it, because he knew if he hadn’t lunged forward at their quarry, she would have— _again_ and she was infuriated with him for it. _You refuse to value your own life_ , she’d snarled, and she was probably a little right.

Something niggled. Some feeling within the cave, like something had gotten all twisted up ahead somewhere. He paused, Emily pausing with him and looking back as he peered down a dark, twisty tunnel that narrowed as it dipped down into the depths. “This way feels odd,” he said, extending his arm into the crack. To get into the slim gap, they’d have to turn sideways, squeeze in almost… his chest tightened with fear, his breath hitching. “Can you feel it?”

“I can’t even see it,” she replied, stepping forward into the light cast by the ball of sun he held in one palm. “It looks like you’re sticking your arm into plain rock. Jinxed?”

“Maybe,” he murmured, and pushed against it. Behind him, Morgan made a noise and stepped forward. “I can get through though.”

Morgan leaned past, slapping his palm on the rock. It echoed meatily down the well-lit tunnel they were in. “I can’t,” he said with a frown. “Reid…”

Without waiting for a reply, Reid pushed in, sliding through the viscous feel of the jinx shoving back and inching through the narrow gap. Someone behind him swore, and a hand grabbed his arm and hauled itself after him, material scraping roughly against rock.

Then they were through, into the barely open space of the dipping tunnel. When they looked back, the way was shut. “You suck,” Emily hissed, but Reid couldn’t help but feel that they _had_ to do this. If they didn’t, Hotch and Rossi… he shook his head mutely. “Why did it let us through?”

“I think because… because _we’re_ jinxed,” Reid admitted. And they were. Emily’s jinx was obvious, glowing deeply within her if he looked at just the right angle. He could fix it, or Rossi could, if she just stopped believing in it so hard. His own was… evasive. And, he suspected, fed a little off of hers. “It’s why I can see through it. And you can feel it, can’t you? It feels…”

“Wrong,” she finished, and shouldered her way in front. “And we have to walk straight through it to move further. You ready? Come here. Don’t let go. Promise me…”

“I promise,” he said, and took her hand. _Big bad special agents, indeed,_ he thought wryly, wondering what Rossi would think of this. “Careful. I think it will be—” They stepped forward and pitched into a bright light. “—booby trapped,” Reid finished, looking around at the wildly altered world around them. “Are we still in the tunnel? I didn’t feel us being translocated.”

Emily looked around as well, blinking. When she reached out a hand, they heard the distinctive impact of knuckle on stone. “Yep,” she said bluntly, and blindly began walking forward. Around them, a grassy football field stretched out under a harsh summer sun. Reid looked up at that sun, then around again, and his heart sunk. Their path was going to take them past the goalposts.

“Em,” he said softly, and her hand was slippery in his palm. “We’re in a memory.”

“Not mine,” she said. Her hand squeezed tighter. “Just keep walking.”

They did. The memory had to end soon enough, he knew the jinx wasn’t strong enough to keep them trapped forever, but it went long enough for them to move invisibly through the group of teenagers surrounding the thin boy curled against the posts. Reid looked away. He didn’t need to see to remember.

Emily watched.

_Everything you do turns out wrong,_ they’d mocked him. _Smartarse Spencer can’t even make a proper spell._ And he’d tried. He was trying. And crying. _Weak._ _We’ll let you go when you charm the ropes off._

He hadn’t managed it. And after that day, his magic had never _worked_ quite right.

“Piss weak,” Emily barked into the distance as the sun faded around them, leaving behind a boy tied to the goalposts behind them. “Our memories can’t hurt us, asshole. We’re not going to keep coming after you because you throw some bad thoughts at us!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t encourage him—” Reid began, and stumbled: “—in case you annoy him.” The sun was gone, the rain drenching. They stood in a row of six, shoulders brushing, dressed in black.

Emily slammed to a stop. Reid did too. There were six in that line. He could see, just barely through the rain, Garcia’s blonde hair. Or maybe it was JJ’s…

He couldn’t see who was missing. Or who was there.

Just the coffin in front.

“This hasn’t happened,” Emily breathed, shaking water from her hair. “This isn’t a memory…”

“Yet,” Reid snapped, and bolted forward. Hit the wall, bounced back into another wall, and tripped over an outcropping as he tried to fumble towards that line, just to see who it was, if it was _anyone_ —

The closest person turned, but before their face was visible, the vision snapped away. Left panting in the dark, Reid slumped against the wall and wiped rain and sweat from his face.

“Move,” Emily commanded, striding forward.

“There might be more of that, we should be careful—” he protested, trying to edge in front so he was in the lead of whatever nasty things got inevitably thrown at them.

“I don’t care,” was her reply, finding his hand again. “Hotch. It was Hotch, Spence. Hotch wasn’t standing with us.” 


	18. January 17th: Hotch’s Knight in Armani Armour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 17th: **The World Needs**  -  **300 words**  - The world needs more femslash. I'm thinking some  **sassy cuddles**  will fit the bill quite nicely. It doesn't matter whether you use in-universe women or gender-swap your favourite peep(s)._

Everything was… weird. Hazy. There was a man with his hand on his arm, guiding him slowly through a dark and narrow void. “Come on,” the man coaxed, pulling him forward. “Come on, Aaron. We just have to get out of range of the curse and you’ll feel better.”

“M’fine,” he slurred, feeling the words trip and fall from his mouth unevenly. Around his head, a cloud swirled, making worried little humming noises. Every time it swept past, it pushed away some of the foggy grossness and left a waft of clean, fresh air in its place. But, every time, the grossness returned in a suffocating pressure that worked its way down his throat to his lungs.

“Fuck,” the man hissed suddenly, and he realized he was on the ground. Knees in the dirt and head throbbing. “Come on, Aaron, get up. There’s something nasty ahead. I want to get past it quick, some kind of spell…”

Aaron?

That was his name.

“Aaron,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and clinging to that. _Jack_? That name felt important, too.

Was Jack his name?

The something nasty swept nearer, crowding around them and replacing the foggy suffocation with the tingly sensation of a spell being worked. Aaron blinked, and coughed out a laugh. The spell was around his eyes and shoulders, blurring everything. Almost everything.

“Oh, you _jagoff_ ,” the man with him choked to the air, realizing what the spell was doing. “This isn’t funny!” But he laughed anyway, very visibly female in the blurry aftereffects of the spell. “You’re very pretty, though, Hotch.”

Aaron looked down at himself, studying the suddenly shapely curves of his body critically. “I don’t feel well at all,” he announced, head spinning. “This is an illusion, right? We’re not…”

“It’s an illusion,” the man reassured him, rubbing his bare chin, his mouth now a womanly cupid’s bow. And… weirdly attractive. Aaron shook himself. “I’m still bristly. And you’re… passing out again. Brilliant. I’m going to have to carry you like a fucking damsel—”

Aaron didn’t really hear the rest of that sentence, but he felt the arms around him, hefting him up. And he felt himself being carried.

_Weird_ , he thought distantly, and then nothing much at all.


	19. January 18th: Morgan’s Mounting Discomfort with Caves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 18th: **Cover Up**  -  **100 words**  - Whether they've been issued new uniforms or just need to dress differently to fit into a setting, everyone is now wearing stripperiffic clothing._

“Oh, I hate this bastard,” Morgan snarled, storming deeper into the depths of the caves. Their maps showed two blinking dots ahead—Prentiss and Reid, the little _shits_ —and he was determined to find them, find Hotch and Rossi, and then drag everyone out of here for a good sit in the time out corner. But the whole damn place was fucking _lousy_ with illusions and mind-tricks, and he was _sick_ of it.

JJ was giggling helplessly behind him, despite their worry about their friends. And he couldn’t really blame her. The last illusion they’d walked into had left them both sporting cat tails and ears, and he’d only _just_ managed to convince her not to take a photo for Garcia. Like he’d ever manage to live that down. He hoped, that wherever Reid and Prentiss were, they were suffering just as much. And here was another: the same tingly, cobwebby feeling of an illusion draping itself over their shoulders. Everything went weird for a moment, blurry, before becoming suddenly very…

Cold.

Revealing.

He looked down and groaned. “What the _fuck_?” he exclaimed, and JJ yelped behind him. “ _Really?_ ” His outfit was now… purple. Glittery.

Very small.

_Really_ very small.

“Oh my god, Morgan, keep moving,” JJ breathed, her voice shrill. “And do not turn around. If you turn around, I _will_ shoot you.”

Determinedly and with his ears burning, he did.

Fuck _caves_.


	20. January 19th: Emily’s Worth More Than a Null-Prize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 19th: **Box**  -  **100 words**  - Everyone loves surprises! Or do they? Muahahaha, a mystery box has appeared in front of your character. Will they choose the box or the other really tempting thing nearby?_

They were still close enough to touch, so she felt the curse hit Reid first. He went rigid, a soft huff of air escaping from his slack mouth, and she spun just in time to see his eyes glaze and face turn empty. A witch was no match for a curse that Rossi would have brushed off. The following spell caught her moments later as she tried to _shove_ the curse away from where she could see it twining through him, immobilising her. When the man stepped out from the cave wall beside them, she snarled at him: “Let him go!” and tried to move. Couldn’t.

“Nope,” he said quietly, studying Reid. Walking close to him, his fingers trailing on Reid’s chest. “You two are interesting. You’re both jinxed, did you know that? But your jinxes are all… mixed up. His is a part of yours just as much as yours is a part of his.”

“Let. Him. Go.” She spat the words, as the man turned and waved his hand. A box appeared between them, cardboard and plain with damp looking edges. Reid looked at it, the first sign of life since the curse had hit him, blinking slowly. “Spence?”

“What’s in there will fix your jinx,” the man said with a cruel smile, and Reid’s eyes widened. “No more faulty magic, Spencer. You won’t be stuck as a witch anymore.” His voice was slow, dark, coiling, and sunk deep into Emily’s core. She shivered, suddenly _wanting_ that box more than anything. From the odd look on Reid’s face, he did too.

And that terrified her.

“Spence,” she moaned, an actual moan, because wanting this hard meant that that box would _hurt_ them. She didn’t want him to touch it. But he stepped towards it, reached for it… “Spence!”

That was a cry. Pure fear. And he stopped.

Looked at her.

His eyes cleared. He moved with a blur of magic, a whirl of spellcasting that didn’t feel like him at all: there was a crackle and a pop and suddenly the man was gone, the box too. She almost whined with loss at the box’s disappearance, but Reid swooped past and scooped up a wriggling, squeaking…

“You turned him into a stoat,” she breathed, the curse breaking completely and leaving her calm again. “ _How_?”

“Copied Rossi,” Reid said plainly, shoving the stoat into his pocket and sealing it with another twist of his fingers. “It’s only _my_ spells I mess up. Em?”

“Mm?” she said, right as he kissed her. Quick and chaste and he followed it up with, _I think I know where Hotch and Rossi are_ and bounded away, but it was sometime to remind her he was okay.

“Idiot,” she muttered to his peeping pocket as she followed him to their friends. “Did you really think he’d choose a box over _me_?”


	21. January 20th: Reid’s Pundamentals of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> January 20th:  **Pun**  -  **100 words**  - Set up a really good pun today!  _Prompter hides under desk and prepares for hatemail._

“I’m starting to think this guy is actually insane,” Emily said bluntly, staring at the door between them and the seriously irate Rossi bellowing on the other side. “The fuck is this?”

Reid ignored her and ignored Rossi—if he was shouting, he was fine—and stared at the door. Various images carved into the wood decorated it, ten in a circle around a hand shaped print in the centre. When he prodded it with his magic, the door completely resisted him. He scowled at a rabbit in a bowl and said, “It’s a magical lock. If we don’t unlock each spell in turn, it will probably… well, I don’t know. But it won’t open, and it may eviscerate us.”

Emily stared. “Oh, I fucking hate that stoat,” she whispered under her breath. “ _How_ do we unlock it?”

Reid looked back at the pictures. The aforementioned rabbit. A dinosaur crammed in between what looked like two waffles. A running banana. None of them made _sense_.

Unless…

“Oh,” he said, and touched the rabbit. “There’s a hare in this man’s soup.” The rabbit glowed and vanished.

“Holy fuck me dead,” Emily breathed. “I hate him, I hate the world, I hate everything—”

The banana was next. “Bananas splitting,” Reid said, touching that one, and then moved onto, “A dino-s’more.”

A fish playing with a guitar. “Tuna fish.” A man with a straight razor standing at an ATM: “Shavings account.” Two identical boys drawing what _looked_ like lewd pictures while frowning at each other… Reid stared intently at that one. “Scribbling ribaldry,” Reid said with a huff, and Emily swore again. The boys vanished.

Finally, the door was empty. The handprint remained. And it still wouldn’t open. Finally, out of desperation, Reid screamed, “What could he possibly want from us! None of this is funny! Is he trying to _kill_ us or make us fucking _laugh_ or what?”

Emily blinked, looking at him and then at the door. “Holy shit,” she breathed, stepping closer. “I think that’s it. This sick _fuck_ was trying to make a joke. Hey, asshole, _asshole_!” In Reid’s pocket, the mad stoat was silent. “If you were trying to make a joke, you seriously screwed up, you wanna know why?”

Reid touched her arm, concerned. “Emily, I think you should calm—”

“No!” she hollered, pressing her hand against the handprint. “Because, you know what? If you were trying to make us laugh, you _suck_! Because no pun in ten did!”

The handprint giggled and vanished.

The door opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't take credit for any of these puns. I don't want credit for any of these puns. I can't believe I wrote this.


	22. January 21st: Rossi’s Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 21st: **After**  -  **Super Saturday word count**  - - pay an escalation cost for each add-on._
> 
>   * **_400 words_** _\- Congratulations, your characters have survived an apocalypse! Now what?_
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- Journal/diary/epistolary format._
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- Your setting for today._
>   * **_+200 words_** _\- Give them a Bolivian Army ending_
> 


Something was wrong.

The door burst open and the kid plus Prentiss came tumbling through, and Rossi had never been so fucking _glad_ to see them. But something was wrong. The illusions were gone, worn off suddenly about an hour before, so thankfully he wasn’t having to explain his, uh, _that_ , but…

“I don’t know why he’s unconscious,” Prentiss murmured, crouched over Hotch with her hands on his chest. “He hasn’t taken a head injury, and you said whatever spell was messing you up the cloud took the bulk of.” She was pretty good at sensing magic, even if she couldn’t wield it, but the dark little niggle of something set right in their unit chief’s brain…

Yeah, only he could see that.

Said cloud had vanished. Getting thicker and thicker with whatever nasty spell it was eating away from them until it had disappeared with a sad little _whomf_. As soon as it popped out of existence, Hotch had made a slow kind of wheezing sound and gone limp.

And Rossi was scared, beyond any fear he’d felt before.

“There’s something there,” he told them when Morgan and JJ found them and they carefully worked together to guide the unconscious man towards the exit of the cave, Reid leading the way. “I don’t know what it is, but that stoaty bastard has done _something_ to him. He almost killed me with a dream. Sick sense of humour aside, there’s a nasty streak to his magic. We should be careful—”

They were squeezing out the gap, almost manhandling their poor boss between them—guy was _heavy_ —when the curse snapped into life, cutting him off mid-speech.

He fought it off, numbly and feeling the ground tip up under him, but the others didn’t stand a chance.

He saw them hit the ground before he joined them.

 

* * *

 

 

Blinking.

Blinking hurt.

Fuck it was cold.

Rossi blinked the hurt away and looked around, his neck crinking. His brain was… foggy. Confused. Aching. Trying to hide something from him. He rapped his fingers on his hip, suddenly aware that he was laying in the snow and that snow was more red than white. Overhead, a purple-orange sky burned.

_Tap tap tap_ went his fingers, and he focused on them with his mind and his magic, blocking out whatever was trying to confuse him. _Tap tap tap—_ the curse. They’d triggered that stoat-fuck’s final curse.

 Okay. That was doable.

He struggled up to find Reid staring down at a rifle in his hands, dressed to the nines in snow gear and what looked like body armour underneath. JJ hunkered by his side, her own eyes cold and locked on the ridge of the ice shelf they were perched on, a semi-automatic tight in her grip and a scar across her face.

“Dave,” said Hotch softly from behind him, and he turned to find the man sitting there with what looked like a whole chunk of leg gone that shouldn’t be gone. Rossi blanched, stared at it, stared at Emily who appeared to be struggling to tug all the gory bits back into a rough leg shape. Unsuccessfully. “They’re catching up.”

From down the mountain, there was a chorus of hungry growls.

“I’m out of ammo,” Morgan called, jogging up through the snow with Will behind him. Both dressed for combat and grim-faced. “Will, too. What do we do?”

Rossi looked to Reid, who was frowning. If anyone was going to twig this was a…

“Nothing,” Reid said quietly, and the roars got louder. He looked at Rossi and his mouth went tight as he struggled upright against the wind that pushed them down. “Dave, don’t worry. I think… I think it’s his final test. And the others won’t remember this.”

“Remember what?” Emily snarled, as Hotch went quiet under her, his eyes huge and glazed. So much fucking blood. “Jesus, Reid, our homes are gone, our _families_. What kind of a test is this?”

“This guy is a sicko,” Rossi pointed out, inching his way back to nudge Emily aside. Cursed dream or not, shock would kill her and she wasn’t dealing well with feeling Hotch bleed out under her. He took over, his stomach lurching at the feel of the wound, reminding himself that Hotch was fine—probably tuckered out on the sandy floor of that fucking cave with them all trapped in whatever nightmare the mad stoat had been making him live through.

Hotch hadn’t had a James to lead him out of his.

“And?” Reid asked.

Rossi looked him dead in the eye as the ridge swarmed with men who weren’t men at all, but monsters. If he looked directly at them, he could see their unsubs there. Past nightmares. Foyet, Doyle, The Fox… all white eyed and deadly.

He didn’t look directly at them.

“This is going to hurt,” he said simply. “He wants to watch how well we die.”

They all stared at him, stunned. Guns clicked emptily as they tried to shoot. Reid dropped his, taking three steps back and wrapping himself around Emily like a really noodly blanket made of arms and ridiculous hair. Emily huddled back.

“No,” breathed Hotch, and Rossi crouched lower. “No…”

“It’s not real,” he promised, finding a hand and squeezing it tight. “The world is fine and so are we, and we’ll wake up as soon as we do what he doesn’t expect us to do.” Hotch didn’t seem to believe him, broken by whatever nightmare he’d been living.

“Which is?” cried JJ, as the monsters reached for her and Will despite their frantic attempts to get away.

“Let go,” Reid cried, and when they reached him he did nothing but hold onto Emily like she was all he had left. “Just let go! If you fight, he’ll hold the curse longer! _Let go!_ ”

They did. Rossi did too. That didn’t stop them screaming. Even Reid.

Especially Reid, because they went for Emily first.

But Rossi didn’t look away, watching the bastards coming for him. And when he woke up from this…

That stoat was _fucked_.


	23. January 22nd: Morgan’s Mismanagement of Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 22nd: **Noodle**  -  **100 words**  - Your characters refer to an infamous incident that was never written/seen._

The hospital waiting room was quiet. Morgan swung the door between his fingers as he stepped inside, Reid slipping in behind him. Along the row of hard-plastic chairs, the team looked exhausted. JJ’s face was ghoulishly pale under the coating of cave dust they all wore. Garcia was teary eyed and jittering. Rossi, despite the fact that he was _supposed_ to be under observation, was pacing in front of them. Emily leaned against the wall, expression unreadable.

“How’d you go getting the stoat back to unstoatyness?” Emily asked with an attempt at humour. Rossi’s mouth thinned. He had wanted to be the one to unstoat the man, but after whatever him and Reid had gone through in the nightmare the man had trapped Hotch and the rest of them in, Morgan wasn’t willing to put them in the same room.

Not that that had helped in the end. He’d just ended up trading one kind of revenge for another.

“Uh,” he said, wondering just how to explain what had happened in that cell as Reid had walked in, smiled, and then cast. “Well, good news is Reid seems to have worked through his jinx. Somehow.”

“Not true,” Reid said mildly. “I _intended_ to undo the spell. Not what I actually did.” But he smiled coldly as he said this, and Morgan shivered.

“What did you do?” Emily asked curiously. Rossi was smiling now, looking intensely proud.

“Remember that time we got him drunk and he tried to show us how to summon a miniature inverse gravitational field using straws and paprika?” Morgan said, finding words finally. They weren’t supposed to talk about this. Hotch had sworn them to secrecy, after banning all paprika. And straws. JJ groaned at the reminder. Emily and Rossi said nothing, both stunned.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” Garcia said to Reid, her own mouth gaping. Reid just shrugged and sat down to wait for news of Hotch, his eyes red and swollen.

Whatever he’d seen in that nightmare, it was sticking with him.


	24. January 23rd: Hotch’s Chittering Convalescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 23rd: **That Happened**  -  **200 words**  - It certainly did!_

They were having what Rossi called ‘yay the boss is awake and almost mostly okay’ drinks. Well, the rest of the team were having drinks. Hotch was nursing a soda and antibiotics and trying to hide the fact that occasionally, _occasionally_ , he forgot their names.

He was doing an alright job of that, although he suspected that JJ knew. She kept hovering. He’d be more annoyed about that, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what the Js in her name stood for…

“Hotch, you have to take it easy,” she soothed, finding him pacing Rossi’s backyard trying to remember everything that was trickling away. He remembered Jack just fine. He remembered _everything_ just fine, except for his team. Anyone who’d walked into that hellhole to drag him out of it… the unsub’s final blow against him. “It’s going to take some time to recover, but you _will_ recover.” There was a distinct _pop_ from inside, followed by Rossi bellowing. JJ winced. “Perhaps recover out here though. Emily is making Reid cast to prove that his jinx is gone…”

Hotch blinked. “Isn’t Reid very drunk?” he said, taking a moment to call up his team member’s face in his mind before he answered. _Reid: clever, too brave, skinny. Sweater vests._ “Is that a good idea? Even Morgan’s magic gets… erratic… when he’s under the influence.”

Another _pop_ and the bellowing became a loud barking chitter, followed by screams. JJ, oddly calm, shrugged. “Rossi, you mean,” she corrected gently. “Morgan doesn’t have magic, Aaron.”

Hotch winced, turning to stare at the house as what looked like an enormous stoat raced past the window, chasing the shrieking Emily. Then he blinked. “Ah,” he said, as Reid bolted from the back door and collapsed giggling on the grass.

JJ turned as well as the stoat tried to wiggle out of the door to lunge at Reid. Reid, clearly unfamiliar with the mustelid propensity to become liquid when going through gaps too small for it, didn’t react before the animal grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him yelping back inside.

“Was that… _Rossi_?” Hotch asked, steadying himself. Maybe the curse hadn’t quite…

“Yep,” JJ said brightly.  “But if you help them now, they’ll never learn. How’s Jack?”

Following her lead, he ignored the screaming.


	25. January 24th: Henry’s Intent on Subterfuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 24th: **Neighbours**  -  **100**  - There's something just a little bit odd about the new neighbours. You can't quite put your finger on it, but it's bothering you._

Henry scowled at the house through the bit in the fence he’d accidentally broken and never told Mommy about. The new neighbours moved around, carrying boxes and bags and things on wheels. Furniture bits. Toys. A girl sat by the back door, kicking her legs and looking bored bored bored. But her face was a little weird—all long and pointy, with a pink flash of a tongue that flicked out over her lips.

And everyone was _smiling_. Everyone but the girl. Smiling and laughing, and Henry rubbed his eyes and ignored his dad calling his name.

Something was _weird_ about them. He knew weird. His family was weird, but the good kinda weird. Mostly. Not really lately, what with Mommy being all worried and Uncle Spencer looking tired and Uncle Aaron looking sick. Even Jack wasn’t smiling so much…

But.

Maybe Jack _and_ Uncle Spencer would be better if he solved this mystery. They liked mysteries. Uncle Spence solved all kinds of mysteries at work, and Jack loved superheroes…

_How,_ Henry wondered, leaning against the fence and frowning, _do you spy on people…_

He would need… a spy. To begin with. He was too noticeable.

_And where,_ Henry thought again, waving at his dad as he leaned out the back door, looking for him, _do you get a spy?_

“Henry, look at the mess out here. What would Mommy say?” Daddy was grumbling, nudging Henry’s chalk bucket with his foot. “Clean up, please.”

Henry blinked and looked at the chalk.

Now _that_ was an idea. He just needed to make a kinda spy that a _girl_ wouldn’t expect…


	26. January 25th: JJ’s Primordial Headache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 25th: **Dino-mite!**  -  **300 words**  - Everything's better with Dinosaurs! You know what you have to do. ;)_

They came home to chaos. JJ felt herself going pale when they saw the police cruiser parked outside her home, two uniformed officers standing by a gaggle of gawkers in the front yard. Will’s head could barely be seen behind the crowd, bobbing around as he gestured furiously to someone unseen.

“Oh my god,” she choked, shivering back into the seat of Spence’s Austin. “Henry. It’s Henry. Something’s happened to Henry.”

Spence said nothing, just touched her arm. Silent reassurance, and she took that reassurance and slipped out of the car on wobbly legs, sure that she was about to have the speech that she’d given to so many other people given to her.

“He’s there, Jayge,” Spencer said suddenly, as the crowd parted and let her see her little boy sitting on the front step, looking shell-shocked and more than a little guilty. JJ sagged, just for a moment, with overwhelming relief, and then put her professional mask back on and walked straight-backed and calmly over to the LEOs and her husband. Will, now she was closer, looked apoplectic. The policemen, however, were hiding smiles. As was the stunned looking couple standing next to them, a little girl looking shyly from around her mama’s skirts.

“What did he do?” JJ found herself saying, resigning herself to something terrible. Spence, with an uncanny knack for gravitating exactly to where he was needed most, had slipped away to Henry. After a beat, with a curious glance at JJ herself, the little girl followed and crouched down beside them both.

“Your son,” Will said, which never boded well. He was only _her_ son alone when he’d been dreadful. “Conjured…” He paused, his mouth moving soundlessly.

“Dinosaurs!” the strange man boomed, hands flapping. “Wonderful, magical, _chalk_ _dinosaurs!_ Do you have any idea of how _exciting_ this is? Hello, Dr. Noble, your new neighbour. I’m a professor of archelogy and your son is _delightful_. How does he do that?”

JJ blinked. Reeled a little. Looked around, slightly nervous, for the said dinosaurs. From within the house next door, a reptilian eye watched her from the window.

“He says they were supposed to be _little_ dinosaurs,” one of the police offered.

“They got a little out of hand,” the second one said, and now she was definitely smiling. “But they seem quite friendly. Err… we don’t suppose you know how to get rid of them do you? It’s just, ah, without a permit… I _think_ they qualify as exotic pets, honestly.”

From up the street, there came the distinct shriek of somehow howling _my petunias!_

“No,” JJ breathed, closing her eyes and pushing back a headache with sheer force of will. “But I know someone who can.”


	27. January 26th: Reid’s Glad He Only Has Godsons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 26th: **Left Turn**  -  **100 words**  - A perfectly normal conversation takes a sudden left turn._

Henry was upset. Reid could tell in a heartbeat, just by the stubbornly square set to his jaw and the over-bright shine to his eyes. He didn’t want them to know.

They knew.

Of course, upset was probably the correct emotion when one had released half a dozen prehistoric reptiles upon the suburb, but…

Well, there wasn’t much they could do about that _now_. The deed was done and the dinosaurs were probably there to stay until Rossi, after laughing himself sick, came to vanish them. At the very least, as the crowd got bored of watching the Scansoriopterygidae build a wonky nest made out of laundry on the neighbouring house’s roof, he seemed to have made a friend.

A friend who seemed determined to cheer him up. “That was really cool,” she announced, flopping onto the step next to him. “When that flappy thing—”

“Scansoriopterygidae,” Reid correctly mildly.

“Scansorithingie,” she continued, “tried to jump on Mom’s head, that was _great_. Can you do that with other things?” She frowned. “Dinosaurs are cool, but horses are better,” was the hopeful addition to the end of the sentence.

Henry sniffed. “Probably,” he mumbled wetly. Reid handed him a tissue. “If Mommy doesn’t ground me forever.”

“How’d you do it?” asked the girl brightly, inching closer.

“Idunno.” Henry slumped more. Wincing with sympathy, Reid shook his head as the damp tissue was offered back. “Just happens.”

“Oh.” The girl didn’t seem _too_ off put by this. She switched her gaze to Reid now, studying him up and down. “Things happen to me sometimes. Wanna know what things?” Henry shrugged listlessly. Reid reached out his arm, letting the boy snuggle close for comfort until JJ finished apologising to…well, everyone. “One time, I ate dirt accidentally. Didn’t mean to. Mixed up my bowls. And another time, I knocked the TV over playing cowboys and it _exploded_. Also, I can cross my eyes like this…” She did so, and Reid began to feel a little overwhelmed. Were _all_ girls like this? “Oh, and I always tell the truth.”

“Always?” Reid questioned, thinking that was probably a lie.

“Always,” she said proudly. “Like, your shoes are ugly, sorry.” Reid blinked. “And also, your tie is really cool. And you’re gonna be a daddy soon.” Reid blinked again, and she added, “ish,” with a bright smile.

“Ah,” said Reid, Henry bolting upright under his arm. They stared at her, stunned, until his phone began to ring. The girl beamed.

“You should probably answer that,” she said, looking back to Henry. “Wanna play cowboys?”


	28. January 27th: Emily’s Something Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 27th: **Torture**  -  **100 words (ahahahahahhahahha)**  - Use torture to break a character. Physical, psychological, (fluff)tickling, (smut)kinky, anything goes. Whether they end up sobbing in a corner or laughing while confessing they stole the last cookie, just find their limits._

Reid was acting odd. Odder than usual. Which was saying something, because the man was stuck in a perpetual state of supremely odd. She tried to get a beer out of the fridge to cool him down from his frantic twitchiness and he almost fell over the couch grabbing it off of her. When she finally grumbled and muttered about going home away from sulky boyfriends, he stammered and yelped and chattered until she sat back down.

Watching a movie was not fun. He sat with his eyes locked on, bizarrely, her stomach the entire time, draped across the couch like a really fixated cat. She ignored him. Tried to ignore him.

Continued ignoring him even as he got up and walked off muttering to clatter through his bookshelves. The distinct smell of casting wafted through the apartment ten seconds later, followed by cursing, followed by a small controlled explosion.

Nothing new there.

When he reappeared, he slunk back onto the couch with his eyes, again, on her abdomen.

“You’re being weird,” she told him tiredly, as he traced his fingers under her shirt in a practised pattern. “Seriously, Spencer, what in the ever-loving fuck are you do—”

_Whumf_ , went the spell, and turned a delightful shade of blue.

_Oh,_ went the Reid, and turned a delightful shade of green.

And he didn’t say a word. Emily stared down at the bluish smoke, looked up at the greenish boyfriend, and decided that—because she had a horrible feeling about that spell—drastic measures were in order.

“I love you,” she said, and he didn’t move. Completely pole-axed. “And that’s what I need you to remember when I do this.”

“Wha?” he mumbled, looking up at her, and that was when she attacked. They tumbled back off the couch with a shriek and a laugh—her laugh, because his ticklishness was _hilarious_ to her—his hands flailing crazily around her as he tried to both wiggle away and fight her off all at once. While being supremely gentle about it. It was like being battered at by a giant, friendly duckling.

Same noises, too. Breathy little _wak waks_ of him choking back laugh/sobs that turned into actual sobs that turned into _please stop, I’ll tell you_ that turned into _who made you this cold_ that turned into _I think you’re pregnant._

That stopped.

Oh.

“Fuck,” she said, and froze on top of him. Panting and still hiccupping a little, Reid stared at her.

“Sorry,” he added, like it was more than half his fault. Instead of replying, she walked away. He let her.

Three hours later, she was still comfortably numb, sitting in his bedroom with her knees to her chest and ears ringing. The door clicked open, Reid slinking in like a kicked puppy, and her heart restarted with a soft little _ow_ at the hurt on his face. She held out an arm, letting him curl under it and press against her, and ignoring that his ear was to her abdomen. They lay like that, her fingers threading through his hair and his breath warm on his thigh, hunched awkwardly over the side of the bed.

“This… this _something_ , isn’t what we planned,” she said finally. Inside her, somewhere, she knew he jinx was waiting. It hurt everything. _Everything_. How could it not hurt _this_? “A _baby_ , Spencer? We’ve barely been together a year.”

He didn’t reply.

“Talk to me,” she coaxed, because she’d be fucked if she had to do this again alone.

_“Iwantthis_ ,” he mumbled against her leg, and she had to jab him to get him to repeat it in an audible tone for actual human ears. “I… I want this. This something. If… if you do. I know… I know I shouldn’t…”

Oh.

“A family?” she clarified, and he nodded, eyes hopeful. Was that something she wanted?

It could be.

The day ticked past outside, slowly dragging twilight towards them, and neither moved. Finally, she decided. “This _something_ ,” she began, and felt him smile against her belly.

“Why are we calling a collection of foetal cells a something?” he asked, which didn’t deserve an answer.

“This something,” she kept going, “is going to be exhausting, Spence. Life-changing. We’ll be tied together irrevocably, no backing out. Full commitment.”

He rolled, looking up at her from her lap. Weirdo. “Something big,” he said, eyes hopeful.

“Something huge,” she corrected. “And probably wro—”

“Not wrong,” he murmured, curling his fingers through hers. “You’ll see. That jinx is _nothing_. Stop believing in it because it can’t touch this. Our baby could be purple or like sports or come out with cat ears—”

“Stoat ears,” she groaned, because _shit_ , was she a stoat while pregnant? The fuck would that do to it? She was going to _kill_ Rossi.

“—and it will still be _perfect_.” He paused. “But almost certainly different. We’re very… different.”

It unknotted a little inside her, the cloying jinx. Because he was right. It couldn’t take this from them, no matter what happened. And maybe she stopped believing in it, a little, just then. She squeezed his hand. “Something strange,” she said finally, with a chuckle. “But in the best way.” 


	29. January 28th: Hotch’s Memorable Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 28th: **Quest**  -  **Super Saturday word count**  - - pay an escalation cost for each add on._
> 
> **_400 words_ ** _\- An epic adventure awaits! Your characters are looking for the MacGuffin that will save the world._
> 
> **_+200 words_ ** _\- The mood is: desperate, resolute, and angry._
> 
> **_+200 words_ ** _\- The MacGuffin is cursed in some amusing way._
> 
> **_+200 words_ ** _- This is your setting for today._
> 
> __

“Dad,” Jack said seriously, rolling the dice in his palm. From around the table, five pairs of accusing eyes stared at him. “You gotta play. It’s _fun_.” His mouth wobbled, the slightest hint of how upset he truly was, and Hotch winced and lowered himself down into his chair.

“I just don’t think I’m going to be very good,” he said, looking at the game that Reid and Prentiss had brought the kids around to play. “Can’t I just be your teammate?” It looked… complicated. Reid-y. And _Prentiss_ wasn’t playing, instead sitting in Reid’s lap with his hands folded over the barest swell of her growing stomach.

“Nope,” Jack said, his chin firm with a look that Hotch knew all too well. He nudged Henry next to him, who looked to Reid and _winked_. Next to Henry, his little friend—Elizabeth, Reid had introduced her—smiled and looked down at the picture the kids had drawn on a large piece of butcher’s paper.

Hotch began to get the feeling that he was being ganged up on.

“Come on, Aaron,” Prentiss said quietly, and he winced at the reminder of how far he’d slipped from the Hotch of the BAU. A muted man left wandering around his house, unable to be reinstated until the lingering remains of the curse finally worked their way out of his system. A start would be remembering Prentiss’s first name, he was sure. “It’d mean a lot to them.”

Reid’s face said _to us_ and Prentiss was glaring under her gentle expression, so he sighed and picked up the dice Jack had dropped onto the paper. Underneath his hand, what looked like a forest of cabbages had sprouted as they’d done their best to draw a green jungle, lush and thick.

“Alright,” Hotch said, and Reid smiled, reaching down for the paper as well and splaying his hand over the corner of it. _Smack_ went three tiny hands as they joined in, Hotch laying his down side by side to Jack’s. “What are you going to do?” he asked Reid, seeing a flicker of magic glinting in the man’s eyes.

“Play a game,” Reid said innocently, and cast.

 

* * *

 

“Hmm,” said Hotch, and looked around at the tangled, misty jungle around them. Distantly, he could see a cloudy bank of rain pressing down, threatening to fall without actually wetting the land around them. The ground under them was dry, baked and parched, the trees around them green but wilting. The jungle was silent. When he tapped his hand down, he could still feel the table under his palm, the dice cool in his hands. The others were still arranged by him, sitting on their own chairs. Henry wiggled around, a pad of blank paper on his knees and a packet of pencils tucked on his lap. “Illusion?”

“Rossi helped me make it,” Reid said, holding Emily’s hand tight as she leaned down to trail her fingers in the dust. Hotch took a quick moment to remember Rossi (best friend, fantastic agent, pretentious sometimes, loyal always). “It’s… more barren than I expected.”

Hotch swallowed. It was. There was something hurting in the trees around them, some damage that had been caused. “Let’s play,” he suggested, noting the kids’ uneasy expressions and wanting to divert from that. “What do we do?”

“You roll,” Jack said quietly, his eyes on the rain-bank that loomed. Hotch hoped it _would_ rain. It was hot here, cloying. There was sweat on his back already, his head aching slightly.

He did. The face of the dice didn’t show a number, instead it glinted oddly, a red light flickering within. The kids leaned closer.

“That means you gotta face a fear,” Jack explained. “We won’t be able to see it, only you. You face it, then you roll again, and that tells you if you win and get to move forward.”

This was a strange game.

“Okay,” he said slowly, and tried to think of a kid-friendly fear. “Ahh, spiders.”

“That’s not the truth,” said Elizabeth instantly, her wide eyes locked on him. “That’s not your fear. You don’t have to say it out loud. Just think it.”

Hotch swallowed, looking to Reid for help. None to be found, Reid was studying a bug crawling across his shoe. _Foyet?_ he thought, but he didn’t really fear Foyet. Something clawed at his brain, some memory. The fog around them shifted, moved, and he could see bodies scattered among the roots of the trees. Too indistinct to make out, but he knew who they were.

“I don’t think I’m fond of this game,” he said, staring at the barest outline of what he was sure was Rossi’s limp hand. “ _Reid_.”

“Theirs won’t be like ours,” Reid murmured, smiling at Henry who was looking around curiously. When he looked back at Hotch, the simmer of magic in his eyes was stronger. He was still casting.

And Hotch knew.

This was _Reid’s_ spell.

“What are you looking for, Dr. Reid?” he said with a forced chuckle for the kids’ sake, and then picked up the die. How would he deal with this fear?

He wouldn’t. It would never come to pass. Not like this. It almost had, but they’d been there for each other. Down into the depths of the earth, they’d come for him. They always would. He rolled the die and they left a scattering of blue as they landed. The fog thinned, the bodies gone.

“You beat it!” crowed Jack, bouncing in his seat. Henry was scribbling busily. “Good job, Dad!”

The headache throbbed and faded slightly.

The round of turns went fast—Henry conjured a chicken monster using his scribble pad that Reid destroyed by asking a riddle, and Jack apparently found a never ending bag of ball bearings that he seemed quite proud of—and it was Hotch’s turn again. He rolled, reluctantly, feeling all eyes turn expectantly to him.

“Find something lost,” Jack declared, and Hotch stared at him. Huh? In response, Jack pointed. The path towards the cloudbank wheeled away, yellow glints sparkling as it went. “Go on, go get them,” his son coaxed. Not entirely sure what the fuck was going on anymore, Hotch got up and walked in the pointed direction, glancing back at the table. Reid, leaving Emily with the two boys, followed with Elizabeth holding his hand.

“Where are we going?” Hotch asked, finding the first yellow glint and crouching to pick it up. A memory flashed when he took it: Foyet holding Jack. He dropped it fast and reeled back.

“Lie,” Elizabeth said sedately, eating a candy Reid had handed her. “Ignore that one. Thanks, Mr. Spencer.”

The next yellow glint: a baby boy kicking his legs in Haley’s arms. “Truth,” said Elizabeth. “And it feels nice. Keep it.” Hotch picked it up, tucking it into his pocket and continuing to walk.

Another yellow: his team crowded around him in the darkened tunnels where he’d had his memories taken from him.

“Truth,” said Elizabeth.

“Good girl,” Reid said softly, squeezing her hand. “Aaron. We can’t see this. If Elizabeth knows this stuff, _you_ know this stuff. I knew Emily was pregnant—Elizabeth only knew because I did. Unconsciously, I suspected, there were signs. Which means everything that you’ve lost is here.”

“In a jungle?” Hotch snorted. This game was _insane_.

Unless…

It wasn’t a game.

“We’re not in a jungle, are we?” he asked, narrowing his vision and looking around. “You just threw an illusion over my mind to hide that we’re in there, didn’t you?”

“The boys aren’t,” Reid replied, his expression guilty. “They are playing a game. My spell kicked in when you got up and followed your memories. You can’t let this curse destroy you… we can undo it.”

“Like your jinx?” Hotch asked savagely. Behind him, the clouds boomed and rolled closer, bringing with them the thick scent of impending rain.

And Reid shrugged. “I’m casting right now,” he pointed out, “and nothing has gone wrong.”

So he was.

“So, what do you want me to do?” Hotch asked desperately, looking around for more yellow. There was a flicker above, but that was lightning. “This is your spell, Spencer. How do I _fix_ what that bastard did to me?”

“That’s a bad word,” Elizabeth said, and Hotch winced at his slip of self-control. “Um. Mr. Hotch? The sky likes you.”

Hotch turned and looked up. The clouds did seem to be swirling around, with him as a focal… oh.

Oh.

“Your cloud,” he said to Reid, stepping back and staring up in the centre of those clouds and the flickering yellow within. “Where did it go when the curse destroyed it?”

Reid stepped close enough that their shoulders were brushing, Elizabeth pressed cautiously between them. “I don’t think it went anywhere. I think it’s still protecting you from being overwhelmed… I think it just needs to be told that you’re ready to be okay again.”

Okay. That seemed simple enough.

“I’m okay,” Hotch told him, seeing lines in his friend’s face smooth out with relief. He turned to the sky, and said again, “I’m okay!”

The cloud hummed happily, and it began to rain. Hotch spluttered, drenched in a moment, and when he blinked rain out of his eyes, suddenly they were back in his living room with the kids dancing around under the still pouring rain, laughing at the giggling cloud.

“Oops,” said the thoroughly drenched Reid, trying to bat away the cloud from his head. “Ahh, yeah, we may need to work on the cloud’s, um, precipitation issues.”

Hotch just smiled, running over his memories quickly, hearing Jack say a worried, “Dad?”.

_Emily. Her name is Emily Prentiss. Jennifer Jareau. Derek Morgan. David Rossi._

_Spencer Reid._

_I remember._

“I’m okay,” he told Jack, and he meant it.


	30. January 29th: Reid’s Got No Idea What They’re In For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 29th: **Clock**  -  **100 words**  - Image Prompt_
> 
> __

“I’m having weird dreams,” Emily complained. Reid chuckled and teased her about Jung and Freud and she frowned and threatened to smother him with a decorative pillow.

Four weeks later, his dreams started.

They were nonsensical. Feelings and emotions and a suffocating pressure. Not even feelings as he understood feelings, but a cautious understanding of someone who _might_ be beginning to comprehend the concept, but wasn’t quite there yet.

“Hmm,” said Reid, upon waking up one day and, vaguely, remembering dreaming of his own voice from far away. “Maybe you’re not crazy.”

“I hate you,” mumbled Emily with her face burrowed in the bedding, and he padded away to research at what point in foetal development babies discovered REM sleep.

The dreams shifted. Instead of _projecting_ that suffocating almost-feeling onto Reid, it began to tug it from him. Curious. Always one to encourage scientific discovery, he obliged it. _What can it possibly understand at this point in development?_ he mused, and then spent the next three weeks quietly making sure he dreamed of love and a waiting home and, because he was a little keen to ensure their baby didn’t end up sports mad, books.

He recited his favourite childhood books from memory, while pacing around in a weary dreamscape, distantly aware of a ticking clock.

As soon as he became _consciously_ aware of the ticking clock, it appeared. He walked up to it, feeling the dream’s perception following him, and examined the time. “You,” he told what he was almost certain was their terrifyingly magical child, “are going to be utterly frightening once you gain a cognitive understanding of cause and effect.”

_Tick tick_ , went the clock, and he swore he heard a laugh. _Tick tick tick_ went the clock, and then it stopped.

The fear woke him, bolting upright with a cry and immediately rolling over to find Emily staring back at him. “You bastard,” she breathed, hand on her stomach, “I told you reading to it would make it _impatient.”_

Reid blinked. Once. Twice. Realized what she meant.

“Oh god,” he said, and ran to find his phone.


	31. January: 30th: Emily’s Sick of Dusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 30th: **Mer**  -  **100 words**  - Why do these things keep happening?!_

“Simon has magic,” Reid announced, walking out of the nursery covered in—inexplicably—dusty pastel coloured paw prints. Tiny ones. Everywhere. Emily paused with a fork of noodles dangling just in front of her mouth as he continued: “And he doesn’t like his mobile.”

“Simon is _three-months-old_ ,” Emily said around the noodles, abandoning them and going to see. “What could he _possibly_ be _doing_ that you, a grown ass man, can’t handle?”

Simon, as it turned out, had been— “He’s summoning,” said Reid, poking his head into the catastrophe that was their nursery. Their son lay kicking happily in his crib as dreamlike stoats made of pastel pinks and blues and greens gambolled around his head and left wispy trails of chalky dust behind. “Isn’t he _brilliant_?” Emily decided right there and then: no more children with the super nerd/terrible witch. Both of those things seemed to be genetic.

Eight months later, Simon saw a dog. Simon wanted the dog. Unlike all his other creations, the lavender coloured Dalmatian he summoned _did_ _not_ go away.

“We should name him Frederick,” Reid said unaccountably, patting the chalky dog and filling the living room with purple dust. “At least he probably doesn’t eat.”

Six months later, Garcia had the wonderful idea to give Reid _stickers_ to decorate the house with.

“What have we talked about?” Emily scolded both of her boys, the two of them sitting on the wet bathroom floor with identical guilty expressions. “Spencer, what was the _rule_ about decorations in the house?”

“None that depict viable biological beings,” Reid said sadly, as a miniature mermaid swirled past his ear. Another twirled overhead, half man half otter, and plucked at one of his curls playfully. “I, err… forgot. At least he hasn’t see the dragon in the kitchen yet…”

“Bad Daddy,” Simon scolded with a giggle, right before he sneezed and accidentally summoned a handful of cherry-coloured mice. “Uh oh. Mama, look!”

“Mama sees,” Emily said, and tried not to smile.

From the kitchen, they all heard a distinct roar and the sound of frantic, ghostly barking.


	32. January: 31st: Simon’s Sombre Supposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _January 31st: **Fatigued** **- 300 words**  - This is the end, but so is this... and this one! Welcome to Ending Fatigue._

“You have to tell us a story,” Simon said sternly. He _had_ to. That was the _rule_. “We signed an agreement stating that for every day that you still love me, you have to tell me a story.” Dad was drooping, his eyes red from exhaustion, but Simon was struck with the realization that if he skipped today… maybe he’d skip tomorrow. And the next day. _Possibly the next._ And then where would Simon be?

Unloved, that’s where.

“Simon, I’m very tired,” Dad tried to say, and Simon winced. He did look tired… Simon hunkered down under his covers and swallowed hard, eyes burning. He would not cry. He would _not_ cry. “… You’re snowing.”

Simon blinked and looked up. Oops. Overhead, a cloud was billowing outwards, sending smoky-grey flakes down to rest on Dad’s hair. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and focused on not snowing. The cloud crumbled into arctic foxes that tumbled down with paws flailing and vanished before they touched his bedcovers. “Fixed it.” And there was another reason he needed his story… his magic was so _unintentional_ , he had to make sure Dad didn’t… well, Dad was good at magic and Simon just wasn’t.

“Simon,” Dad said, and inched closer. “Look at me.” After a beat, Simon did. There was a fox on his ear. Dad didn’t seem to notice. “You don’t need _this_ —” He pointed to the wall where Simon had painstakingly pinned up every contract they’d drawn together, right from back when Dad had to hold the pen because Simon’s bones weren’t yet developed enough for fine motor skills. Simon studied the closest— _A referendum to the breakfast agreement witnessed by Mom re: pancakes must have faces unless the face is to be covered by a spread that is opaque_ —as Dad continued, “—to reassure yourself that you are exceptionally loved and always will be.”

Simon wasn’t ready to commit to that idea quite yet. “Okay,” he said, unsure, and rubbed his fingers along Freddy’s chalky fur to distract himself from the anxious feeling in his gut. “But…”

Dad waited.

“…can I _please_ have a bedtime story?”

Dad chuckled and settled down on the floor next to the bed, chin on his folded arms. “Alright. Let’s see… where did I leave off yesterday? Ah. Yes… the mad stoat.”

“He took the King’s memories away,” Simon reminded him. “And the King’s Witch wasn’t good enough at magic to help so he was sad.”

“He _was_ sad,” Dad said, nodding. “He was so terribly sad, watching his king fade away like that. And, despite the mad stoat being captured by the guards and being tried by due process in a fair and unbiased court of law, it felt like there wasn’t a possible resolution he could reach that would save his king. Do you remember why he wasn’t good at magic?”

“His heart was tangled,” Simon recited. He knew this. Dad told him this all the time, every time Simon fumbled a spell or accidentally summoned more stoats. “And you can’t do magic with a tangled heart because your intentions get all mixed up with your actions.” It didn’t make sense to him. What was logical about a muscle in your chest interfering with casting? More fairy-tale stuff.

“Did I ever tell you how the Witch fixed his magic?” Dad asked. Simon shook his head. “Well now, the Witch realized he couldn’t be tangled anymore. He went on a quest—into a dark, dark cave to find his king—and down there he was threatened and endangered and, not only he, but his family as well. And if he let himself stay tangled while they were in danger, he couldn’t help them. So he decided not to be tangled anymore.”

“Just like that?” Simon asked doubtfully. “That’s a little anticlimactic.”

“Just like that,” Dad repeated. “It took a while, mind you. The brain doesn’t like ‘just deciding’ things. It snuck in little thoughts, intrusively—whispers of _you’ll never get better_ and _why bother trying_ and _maybe they won’t even care if you do_ , but he ignored those thoughts and kept trying anyway… and eventually… he stopped thinking those thoughts at all. He saved his king—but you know that story—and he went home with his family, and he had a clever, clever son.”

“And that’s the end!” Simon said, because it was. That was where Dad had always finished the story. It was a _good_ ending.

“Yes,” Dad said, “but no. There’s a little more.”

Huh?

“One day the Witch looked at his son, grown from a clever baby into a clever boy.” Dad paused, breathing deeply for a moment. “And he saw that his son was tangled too.”

“Oh,” said Simon.

But Dad was watching him with that fixed kind of gaze that said he was saying more than the words he was using, so Simon pushed past the hot rush of _uh-oh_ that brought and tried to listen for more.

“And he told his son that—no matter what—there’s never any reason to let the tangling get so bad it feels like that. Intrusive and demanding and never-letting up. If the thoughts sneak in, those little whispers of _you’re not good_ enough, what he should do is talk. Talk to me. Or to Mom. Your Mom is a good listener—one of the best—and she was tangled too, once. You are good enough. Your brain is silly to suggest otherwise. And you don’t need a contract to prove that.”

Simon was burning again, but not from misery this time. This time it was a little embarrassment and a lot that bubbly kind of _happylove_ feeling that he got when he was with his family. But he didn’t know how to say that, so instead he just said, “Thanks, Dad,” and patted the glittery purple kitten that had appeared on his lap and was happily needling away at his blankets.

Dad smiled and kissed him goodnight, twice because Mom was busy up the hall. “I love you,” he said, turning off the light. The room wasn’t dark. It was never dark. The kitten glowed and Freddy did too, which was good because Simon didn’t mind the dark but he knew Dad did. “Never forget that.”

And then he was gone.

Simon waited. Counted to fifty and then doubled that and then worked out the square root of each of the prime numbers within and then doubled those as well.

And then he slipped out of bed, shushed the kitten, and padded up the hall with Freddy at his side. There was a light on ahead. He paused, wincing. Busted. But he didn’t stop, because maybe part of not being tangled was making sure that those bad thoughts didn’t have time to get all knotty. It wasn’t very logical, but Mom was always saying there was nothing logical about magic.

“What are you doing awake?” Mom scolded from her chair, looking up to see him peering in. “Dad put you to bed ages ago.”

Simon shrugged and scooted in, finding a stool and perching on it at his mom’s side, studying her carefully. “I got sad,” he said, because if he was going to start untangling, it might as well be now. “And I want to tell a story to not be sad anymore.”

“Okay,” Mom said after a moment, her eyebrow going all up to show she was listening and a little amused. “Go ahead.”

Simon leaned on her arm and focused on Alex instead, her face intently focused on feeding. “Once upon a time,” he said, and held his finger out for his baby sister to grip her chubby hand around, snuffling gently as she ate, “there was a little witch, and he liked being that way. But then came another witch who was littler than he was and maybe better too… and he worried that everyone would like the littlest witch more…”

“Oh, Sim,” Mom said, but he ignored her. The story wasn’t done.

“He was wrong,” he said, and Alex looked at him with her unfocused eyes. “And he’s sorry. Being the second littlest witch is just fine by him.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Mom said, and Simon laughed. “But is the dragon necessary, love?”

Huh?

Simon looked at his shoulder where a polka-dotted dragon was happily blowing bubbles of milk from its nose. “Uh,” he said. “That’s not mine, Mom.”

Mom’s face fell. “Spencer!” she yelled, readjusting Alex in her arms as she stood and stormed off to shout at their dad. “You’ve bloody done it again!”

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited August, 2017.**


End file.
